The Little Red Riding Hood
by Wasabisugar
Summary: A crescent of white nails curved into an alienating imitation of a smile whilst two jagged yellow orbs glowed in perverse eagerness. She had not spoken of the devil, yet he or something far worse had appeared.


I thought about this for like, one second, but quickly dismissed it because I was absolutely convinced that it had been written over a hundred times. Curious to read one of the supposed hundreds of Fanfics related to this children's tale, I searched on and was knocked off my feet to see that…

There were only two stories.

Those stories may have been great, but I felt compelled to write one myself after spotting the lack of interest in such an underrated story.

So here I am, writing a NaruHina adaption of "The Little Red Riding Hood". A one-shot.

Some parts will – naturally - be different. Some will be the same. For example, the dialogue.

**This a collaboration with the _absolutely amazing _'Breezewhiskers'. Please, check him out because he is, guaranteed, _much _better at riding Dinos than I ever will be.**

The story is not rated M for romance purposes. In order to emphasize the creepiness of The Little Red Riding Hood and allow myself to describe the scenes in greater detail, I decided to raise the rating. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

* * *

The Little Red Riding Hood

Her tired, half-open eyes roamed through her dark surroundings as she silently treaded through the maze of rotting trees. Every few seconds of each minute, she would briefly glance down at the basket she held in her small pale hands. The forest was one of those places which had no palpable reason to exist. It was a creaking shack created by nature to serve as a reminder that things could always be much, much worse. The unnatural, choking mist that swirled and sprawled on the forest floor was the first thing that spoke of a strange sort of wrongness. The sickly white substance seemed to possess liquid properties which only reminded of the maggot-like texture of the eyes of a dead man who had been forgotten in his house for a few months, ready to burst at the slightest touch. The smoke made no sound however and only parted to swallow up her feet as she marched upon the giant dead, festering eyeball of the forest floor. The sound of mushy and dead leaves whispered from under the skin of the mist. A strange sensation, seeing as how no-one had ever seen this forest in bloom, nor had a singular green vine ever decorated the bones of the spindly trees that were stabbed into the ground at awkward and unnatural spots. No orange or yellow had ever been sighted during the autumn seasons. The forest had always been dead. It would always remain dead. As she glided forward over the brittle skin of the worming forest floor and breaking the licking sensation of the tails of maggots, her crimson cloak shuddered in the stale yet crisply cold air. The dim, enveloping grey-blue light that shunned the red visitor scampered and slid away to stitch its bat skin of darkness between the fingers of the trees, hiding what lay beyond and within. The air contained nothing. No sound of birds, no rustling of undergrowth, no whiff of smell. Not even a whisper of the wind. The forest simply existed without a hint of life. The roaring sound of a barren landscape surrounded her like a black, featureless mob that simply watched her with no eyes. The distant shade of a tree could easily be mistaken for the silhouette of something that has no name, no description, only the revolting scent of the unknown. The freak. The soundless howl of that thing whose name is evil.

_Why has grandmother decided to live in this den of death?_

The moss beneath her feet sank down below each step, devouring her feet and parasitically clinging onto the life she carried with her in stringy, wet hooks as she made her way down the seemingly endless path towards her sick, sick grandmother. Her mother had given her the basket she now held with the words: _'Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, "Good morning", and don't peep into every corner before you do it.' _To which she had simply promised her mother to do just that, without even once considering the weight of her task.

The almost-supernatural silence, it felt like she would succumb to insanity if it would go on any longer. The little girl tightened her grip around the handle of the basket she held within her hands and took a deep breath as if to lend nature's deadened calmness.

The corridors of twisted light and the spindly, dead hands of the trees ushered her quietly down a small path that seemed all too convenient, yet when she tried to go back, it was as if nothing had ever existed there in the first place, only the barren horizon strangled with that ethereal fog. Nearly stumbling over a bony log, she found herself on the path. The trees were thick here, forming a sinewy wall of bark and nettle on either side of her. The skeletal branches curved and forcefully broke and mashed themselves into new shapes above her to form a ceiling, a ribcage of bark. The writhing mist was sucking at her knees at this point, flirting with the idea of licking even higher as she slowly glided through the wall of smoke. Her footfalls were muffled but even so, still the only sound she could hear. The circular corridor in front of her seemed to go on forever without the proverbial light at the end. The trees lost more and more color and eventually became jagged, black, too thin and glistening wet to even be considered organic. There was less and less room to move. The clawing tips of the demonic thorns hungrily lapped and snapped at her cloak with black, barbed tongues. The writhing smoke was pulsating, thick around her waist and ghosting up to her neck to dare an entrance into her mouth and nose.

There was a shift. The illusory groping sensations were replaced by something that was unquestionably real. There was something else, something more than her footsteps. The dead forest had something else in it. She wasn't quite sure as to what it was, a snapped twig or an overturned rock or the dispelling of the maggot-like mist but it was there. It was something powerful, unnatural. Lean and experienced, it was alive. She dared a glance at the wall of black bones and saw naught but the thorns that so desperately wanted to kiss her bloody and blind.

"I-Is someone… There…?" The answer she received was absolute silence. _Nothing but my imagination. _She had barely resumed her slow pace before she realized that there was something in the way.

It stood hunched. Whatever it was it was not of this world. The strange and twisted proportions were reminiscent of a human but there was something wrong about it, like the rest of the forest. A crescent of white nails curved into an alienating imitation of a smile whilst two jagged yellow orbs glowed in perverse eagerness. She had not spoken of the devil, yet he or something far worse had appeared.

The criss-crossed wire of corrupted nails softened in their glee, fading to a subdued smirk. The solid yellow eyes seemed to be leaking a cursed sort of energy that lingered for a second in trails when its head moved from side to side, swinging in a playfully lazy path. The black shape took a few confident steps toward the girl in the red cloak, with its entire body grooving into the lazy swing that it had started with its head. In the end it stood before her with an extended head and neck and curved talons resting, hanging in front of two bony knees, still swinging in that otherworldly way. It merely stood there and observed with that maleficent face and kept swinging in place until it finally made a sound. It spoke.

"Little Red Riding Hood." He breathed, stealthily beginning to approach her. His irises seemed to pierce through her, earning him the sight of a series of shudders which proved to him how much his mere appearance could frighten a human being.

"W-wolf…" She whispered, mortified. The beast's ears perked in beguilement, and his eyes instinctively lunged to the basket she held behind her back.

"Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?" Their eyes met once again, but this time, his hungry, sinister eyes had decayed into a darker shade of crimson, and Hinata's body shook against his glare.

"T-to m-m-my… Gr-gran-grand…mother" Was she truly speaking with a _wolf?_

_Please, let this be an illusion._

As if acknowledging her disbelief, the boy –wolf – beast opened his mouth, exposing the full set of canine teeth with trails of meat and pulsating threads of stringy plasma accented with the blackened scarlet hue so commonly found beneath the skin of little girls like herself. He screeched a loud, intimidating roar. In an instant, the red hood she wore was blown off her head, and her hair blew with the force of his confirmation of existence, matted with hints of still-pulsating threads of flesh. _He is real. _

Hinata's throat burned. Fearful, wide eyes bore into his own. _Human._

"Say." He began, his eyes shifting back to the color of the moon. "What have you in your basket?"

"C-cake… a-and wine…" She choked on her words, and the wolf's grin – if possible – widened even more, seemingly splitting flesh. Provoked, he reached up to her face and, deceiving her fears, grasped the bottom of her jaw. As he examined her – facial expression, thoughts and slight movements – he thought: _Delicious. _  
Hinata, on the other hand, could think of nothing but ways to defend herself. And they would certainly not work on something like him. Was he human – or a monster? She wanted to escape and find help, but his hand held her in place, and after a minute or so, she began indulging herself with the thought that he may not harm her. Once again, the wolf read her mind like an open book.

His hands, rough yet precise, ripped her cloak open in one swift movement, stripping her from her innocence. She could not scream, and even if she had the ability to, no one would hear her. It was strange, because even though the woods were as silent as death itself, sounds never seemed to make their way especially far. It was like the trees were blocking off as much noise as they could, to make the space seem much smaller than it really was, and due to the thick, tangible fog that covered every square meter of the forest like a wall, it felt true. The more she looked at the fog, the closer it seemed to come.

"Ple-please, st-stop…!" She resisted, trying to close the cloak rather than push him away. There was no point, she could not match the strength of him. It was most likely the mocking grin he wore that caused her to fight back, it gave him a somewhat uncanny appearance, closer to demon than human. She did not wish to succumb to such a creature.

Futile as it was, the wolf who showed no sign of remorse, continued to tear through her every layer of clothing until she stood before him as herself, with nothing but her bare skin to offer him. All the articles of clothing that she'd worn lay scattered around her, and the cloak, which lay a few meters away, had the bottom severed, leaving the edge shortened and uneven.

The wolf chuckled, then suddenly leaned forward and laughed with all his might. Laughed at her pathetic form that cowered before him in fear and hope of mercy.

"You pitiful girl. All you wished for was to deliver some _cake _and _wine _for your grandmother." He furrowed his eyebrows, but the teasing smirk remained unscathed. The little red riding hood averted her frightened eyes in humiliation. It was neither warm nor cold, but the tiny hairs on the surface of her skin were straight and pointed upwards. She was freezing.

The wolf had never been given the opportunity to have his way with a woman. He was thrilled by the sheer thought of it, while she kept her eyes directed at anything but him. While he took a brief glance around, she tightened her grip around the handle of the basket and set her lips into a straight line. She had a plan that might, just _might_ work.

"Kneel." He said in a stern, somewhat stressed voice. Hinata, the Red Riding Hood, did exactly as he said and fell to the ground somewhat more gracefully than anyone in the same situation would. The ground was soggy from the moss that covered it. Chips of wood and bark had been almost completely absorbed by the ground as if it were some form of quicksand, but Hinata's knees did not sink very far down before reaching the bottom.

She didn't know what to assume.

"What is your real name?" He asked, somewhat unexpectedly.

"Hyuuga Hinata." She answered quickly, robotically, and the wolf became somewhat suspicious of her calm demeanor. Nonetheless, he entangled his fingers in her hair and grabbed a fistful of it as he leaned down to her level with a lazy, phlegmatic expression. The gnashed black talons encircled her wrist like a corrupting bracelet, his eyes spinning and whirling madly to keep up with her thrashing face. His tongue lolled and flapped around outside his jaw like a dismembered arm in a car crashing at 500 miles an hour. His pants spat out sweat with every eager breath, wanting to drag this out for as long as he could.

Suddenly, her body caught up with her mind and Hinata panicked. The little girl shrieked and desperately flung herself will all of her girlish might away from the wolf to no avail. With one hand free, she grabbed the first thing she came across and swung it at the insidious yellow pools of malice with every fiber of her being. The precious wine bottle reserved for her grandmother alone exploded upon the visage of the thing from hell, dark violet fangs of glass were hammered into the wall of fur and flesh. Red Riding Hood found her own anguished scream of rage absorbed by the wailing of the shattered gift, either empowering the blow or perhaps rendering it imaginative as far as the two figures were concerned. The wolf backed off picking at his face and nose, ragged breaths accompanying the clinking of glass being dropped onto the floor with increasing speed. He stopped and saw the reflection of a little girl in a red hood in the face of the violet glass. He looked at his hand and saw red too, a scarlet kiss that escaped his palm to meet the floor. He looked up, through the slashes of his hair.

He saw red.

But there would be time. Time for him to have his vengeance.

"Without a flower?" He changed the topic, understandably bewildering the trembling young girl. He glanced back at the darkness lingering behind him. The branches seemed to bend and twist, opening a small path as the red riding hood opened her basket to confirm the wolf's inquiry. By the time her lavender met yellow, the path had already opened up and the wolf was motioning for her to follow him. "I know a place." _He is injured, yet he does not appear even the slightest bit bothered by the wound._

Something told her that she shouldn't follow him, and even though she would rather flee from the beast to the safety of her grandmother's home, she was also very aware of that she was in no way near as fast as him. No matter how repelling each footstep towards the smaller path felt, she couldn't stop herself from going on. The little red riding hood had no other choice but to trust the Big Bad Wolf and follow him to the supposed location of the flowers. _I hope grandmother will like them. _

The only noise that could be heard in the thick grounds littered with dead trees was footsteps. Muffled sounds of feet pressing down upon dry leaves rustled and fell apart as the two beings made their down the path. Her eyes were glued to his back, and were she not so busy watching him, she would most definitely have realized how the branches sewed shut the space behind her. They were only walking further and further into the maze, and finding her way back to the main road would be more than difficult at this point.

"From where have you acquired such a fine cape, girl?" He asked, his deep voice vibrating through the hollow wood around them. He reached his hand out and gently grasped the crimson material as his claws began to shorten. She wouldn't have known his location if not for his physical appearance. His voice could have come from anywhere.

"My gr-grandmother made I-it for me." Hinata replied, and the wolf nodded briefly, his eyes growing for a split second before a fine idea sparked in his head and the grin that was slashed on his lips grew again. In return, she glanced up at his abundant eyelashes and wondered for the slightest moment if he could possibly be human. His manner of speaking, and the way he expressed his interest in her bewildered her mercy. Before she knew it, she was standing in a field of pink, blue, green and countless other colors and shades. One glance at the flowers and the wolf had vanished without a trace. She had not noticed until her bouquet was full that he was no longer there. Hinata stood up and looked around her, but the beast was nowhere to be seen. The only trace of color to be found was the crimson cloak that hung, unmoving behind her back. She was so used to it flickering in the wind that she almost felt urged to make sure that it indeed was what she hoped and not something else.

"…Wolf?"

* * *

Meanwhile, deep within the woods, before a small cottage, sat an old lady. She sat in her high-backed arm-chair, knitting and humming, humming and knitting, as happy and contented as a grandmother could be. Although she was sick and ought to be bed-bound, the lady refused to listen to advice and continued to do what she enjoyed the most.

But suddenly, a hard, unfamiliar noise was heard from the door. The poor grandmother turned cold with fear; she did not dare to move for some minutes; but the thud was repeated several times, as if someone was trying to knock. It was not knuckles against wood, but more like nail against metal. She tottered towards the door, and said in a tremulous voice, "Who is there?"

"Little Red Riding Hood," Replied the wolf. "She is bringing cake and wine; open the door." And although the grandmother doubted the voice, she abided. There was silence, and she reached for her cane, but just as her fingers grazed the smooth wood, the door flung open and the wolf bolted into the house, throwing her down on the floor. He loomed over her, his eyes quietly studying the cane that now lay at the end of the room. The corners of his lips twisted upwards and he said, "Had you plans to injure me, wench?"

Her whole body shook as she tried to push herself back up, and the old woman gritted her teeth in both pain and defeat. "Wh-what have y-you do-done to my gra-gra…-"

"Safe and sound, picking flowers for her dead grandmother." His tone was playful, mocking, and she clenched her fists. _Granddaughter, turn back! _The shadow of the wolf darkened her vision, and she managed nothing but a scream before her body was covered by his.

The Little Red Riding hood, however, was occupied with the gorgeous flowers that surrounded her, and by the time she could gather no more, she remembered her grandmother. _I wonder where the wolf is._ Hinata, the Red Riding Hood, picked up her basket and set out to find the path she had wandered off.

After the wolf had taken his leave from her side, the forest seemed to go back to a more peaceful state. It was in no way pretty, or less uncomfortable to tread through, but the presence of the wolf had in some way caused her surroundings to appear more haunting than they really were. The way he had stared at her after she'd hit him with the bottle, and the way he changed the topic so nonchalantly after it told her, however, that she would meet him again.

But even as she reached the cottage in which her Grandmother lived in, there was not a remnant of what had previously occurred. The wolf had left no trace of ever existing, but the broken pieces of glass clutched in her hand would serve as proof of her encounter with the wolf.

She was rather surprised to find the door left ajar. Hinata had not thought much of it before, but the closer she walked towards her grandmother's bedroom, the more ominous her surroundings became.

"Good… Morning…?"

Her greeting was rudely interrupted by her stepping on something hard on the floor. She looked down, confused, because her grandmother would rarely leave _anything _out.

A wooden cane.

"Grandmother? A-are you home?" Her uneasiness grew as she approached the bedroom. There was no reply. She wanted to run and throw herself on her and through muffled whimpers tell her about the wolf. There was also the cloak to apologize about, and despite the torn bottom, she had insisted on wearing it. It was her favorite, after all.

Once she entered the room, Hinata was met by a figured that did not quite appear regular. Most importantly, her grandmother rarely succumbed to the doctors' advice. She would spend most of her time in the living room before the fire. But this…

The cap was pulled far over her face, and she appeared much taller than last time they had last seen one another. Furthermore, her grandmother was quite muscular. Had she been exercising? It felt very dubious, given the severity of her sickness.

"Grandmother," she began, "What big ears you have…"

"All the better to hear you with, my child," was the reply. Hinata took another step towards the bed, her eyes never leaving the cap she had pulled so far down on her face.

"But, grandmother… Your ears… Th-they're enormous…" The more she spoke, the more she began to realize that this thing, this creature, was _not _her grandmother.

"All the better to see you with, my dear." Not even the voice matched that of hers. Hinata's eyes drifted down to the arms.

"But, grandmother, what large hands you have!" They weren't hands, but paws. Paws with sharp, even claws.

"All the better to hug you with." Her tone shifted, and Hinata's eyes grew wide upon recognizing who it belonged to. At this point, the words she spoke were no longer related to her thoughts at that very moment. The revelation of this person's true identity had caused her to wonder where her real grandmother was.

"Your mouth, Grandmother… It's huge."

"All the better to- "He rumbled with unrestrained zeal, clicking his talons together in anticipation as his eyes lost whatever intelligence that remained. "-eat you with."

Hinata stumbled back into the wall behind her, the only way out was tainted with a view of the thing that trapped her. The Red Riding Hood had absolutely no intention of rattling down into a heap and awaiting her seemingly obvious fate. She was yet alive, who says she can't be alive tomorrow, or the day after? Or for the rest of her life? None but the Big Bad Wolf. Yes, none but him.

She ran her thumb against the fangs of her bottle and kissed it against the bridge of her nose, the scarlet kiss elongating into a defiant raw streak across the nose. She gripped her jaw of violet glass harder and reflected the snarl of the best who defied her.

"You're in my way." She whispered. "Move."

* * *

Didn't expect that, didya?

Don't forget the exceptional Dino Rider!


End file.
